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WASHINGTON: There’s no one thing that keeps the Pentagon’s chief of intelligence up at night. There’s half-a-dozen things — terrorism, cybersecurity, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China — but Mike Vickers has a six-point plan to counter them. “The big challenge we face is really in the aggregation of challenges,” the under secretary for intelligence… Keep reading →

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PENTAGON: The age of laser weapons has officially begun. Since September, the Navy has had a $40 million, 30-kilowatt Laser Weapons System (LaWS) aboard the USS Ponce in the Persian Gulf. “They’re using it every single day,” said the Chief of Naval Research, Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder. Sailors — not contractors or engineers — perform basic… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Where do ground forces fit in the Pentagon’s new offset strategy? The answer may be an intriguing mix of old-fashioned armored forces, mobile missile launchers, and lasers on trucks. While Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s remarks formally launching “offset” were frustratingly vague, we’ve heard plenty from other officials and outside thinkers about how the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Someone shoots a cruise missile at you. How far away would you like to stop it: over 200 miles out or less than 35? If you answered “over 200,” congratulations, you’re thinking like the US Navy, which has spent billions of dollars over decades to develop ever more sophisticated anti-missile defenses. According to Bryan… Keep reading →

Howard Bloom is, for lack of a better term, an original thinker. He penned “The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History,” “Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century,” and most recently, “The Mohammed Code.” Bloom wrote this op-ed for us in response to the question… Keep reading →

It is with great sadness I must tell our readers of the untimely death of Michael Adler, our most excellent reporter on the long-running Iranian nuclear crisis. Sigh. Even though we write about war and its relatives here at Breaking Defense, it never really entered my mind that one day I’d have to write about… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama today outlined a careful commitment of US forces to Iraq, pledging to watch any “mission creep” as he sends an initial 300 special operations advisors to gauge the strengths, weaknesses and cohesiveness of Iraq’s security forces as they battle the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The U.S., Obama… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Missile defense is notoriously technically challenging, but sometimes the biggest problem isn’t tech, but trust. Even the most advanced systems can’t stop Iranian or North Korean missiles if America’s allies can’t cooperate to integrate those systems into a regional defense, because ballistic missiles can move too fast and far for a single country to… Keep reading →

The Navy’s Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf doesn’t have an effective long-distance missile for ship-to-ship engagements. The Navy’s plans to eventually position eight Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) in the gulf by 2018 will not alleviate this problem, given current armament and design. (Tarbi wanted to use the Arabian Gulf instead of Persian, but the… Keep reading →

Talks this week in Vienna to win guarantees that Iran won’t seek nuclear weapons were workmanlike and “drilled down into details,” diplomats said. But the crisis in Ukraine threatened to change the strategic landscape that has made the negotiations possible. The Russian envoy to the seven-party talks in Vienna said Wednesday that Russia might take… Keep reading →